AND SAY BESIDES THAT IN ALEPPO ONCE

with a recipe for nostalgia

Nancy Harmon Jenkins

This story is based on something I wrote for Ed Behr’s publication, The Art of Eating, several years ago. You can find the original here: https://artofeating.com/once-in-aleppo/

oven-baked fatayer pastries in Aleppo

I’ve been to Aleppo twice in my life and I realize now, unhappily, that I shall never again visit what was one of the most ancient and alluring cities in the entire Middle East. Aleppo, it used to be said, is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. That may be a stretch—Damascus claims it too—but it’s darned close. And now, it is ruins upon ruins. First the terrible impact of the Syrian Civil War destroyed Aleppo’s infrastructure and set its population, those who could move, fleeing as refugees. And now the devastating earthquake has put paid to what little remained.

Back in the early 1970s, I visited Aleppo with a group of friends from Beirut. We took rooms in the Baron Hotel, a legendary if shabby institution where Charles de Gaulle, T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia), Agatha Christie, and many other notables had stayed, not all at the same time. Coco Mazloumian, the owner, was a descendant of two brothers who had established the hotel in the early years of the last century when Aleppo was a fabled stop on travelers’ routes from Beirut, Baghdad, and Jerusalem north to Istanbul, and all of that vast territory was still part of the rapidly moldering Ottoman Empire. By the 1970s, the Baron was markedly diminished since its glory days, a dusty monument to faded splendor in keeping with the crumbling old town. Aleppo was sleepy Syria’s very sleepy second city, a place of great charm, delicious food, deep history, and sometimes deplorable sights—like the small boys, pale cheeks besmirched with soot, working in the slag heaps of grimy medieval ateliers where they hammered out tinned copper trays and bowls that were a celebrated product of the town.

The local Armenian community was large. Driven from their ancestral homes in Turkey decades earlier, many had fled to Syria and Lebanon where they thrived. It often seems that Middle Eastern history, all of it, is simply a sorrowful, unending series of catastrophes, one after the other, with refugees seeking a safe haven or at least asylum until the next blow strikes. Armenian memories were still poignant in Aleppo. Every night, after dinner, Coco would summon his guests to the bar for an after-dinner snifter of Armenian brandy while he played Armenian opera on an ancient gramophone.

I stayed at the Baron again when I went back to Aleppo in October of 2000. By then, Coco was long gone and his widow, Sally, paid scant attention to the hotel which continued to rest on its legend but not much else. The liveliest sight at the hotel was Walid, a genial, knowledgeable driver who spent his time in the courtyard waiting for clients while he buffed and polished a 1952 Studebaker sedan that he called Aziza. Still, the Baron had a familiarity that pleased me, despite the dust.

Aziza with Walid on the Roman road, north of Aleppo

That time I was on a quest to find out what I could about Aleppo pepper, a regional staple that had become popular with chefs and cooks in the United States. Flayflee halabiye, they’re called in Arabic, which means simply “Aleppo peppers,” Halab being the name of the town in Arabic.

Back in 2000, life in Syria was remarkably peaceful despite the oppressive Assad family regime. A comfortable mix of ethnic and religious groups included Sunni and Alawite Moslems, Orthodox, Catholic and Maronite Christians, Jews, Armenians, Kurds, and a few bold Germans who had moved in to restore Aleppo’s handsome old mansions, turning them into boutique hotels and restaurants to attract foreign tourists. Syria was poor and backward but, hard as it is to believe today, most people lived together amicably if somewhat uneasily. (An aside: During my visit, I was a guest at a Greek Orthodox christening that took place in a Catholic chapel, in itself a somewhat awkward situation requiring episcopal approval from both sides. As the baby began appropriately to wail, his aunt, sitting next to me, elbowed me in the ribs: “One more Christian for Syria,” she muttered darkly.)

One thing that linked all these people, or at least so I like to think, was the way they shared the robust cuisine of a culturally rich region that extends from northwest Syria up into southeastern Turkey, or from Aleppo to Gaziantep and the surrounding areas. As in many other parts of the Middle East, it was obvious here how political boundaries imposed after World War I utterly failed to reflect on-the-ground realities of culture, language, or tradition. Of course, there were Jewish and Muslim and Greek and Armenian ways of preparing and cooking food, but one of the major characteristics of the cuisine that linked them all together was the ubiquitous use of these remarkable peppers, mostly dried and flaked but also in a thick, intensely fragrant paste.

Aleppo peppers, ready for processing

Part of the great species of Capsicum annuum, Aleppo peppers are distinguished for their flavor, a combination of forward sweetness, a warm, mouth-flooding capsicum taste, a lightly tart hint of fermentation, and a somewhat delayed heat that is never overpowering. They rank a mild 10,000 units on the Scoville scale, far from Scotch bonnets, which can go to a searing 300,000 and beyond.

I was there in October, pepper season, when the harvest of ripe red peppers was complete and the lengthy task of drying and processing them could begin. Much like Santa Fe in October, the whole town was filled with the sunny, seductive aroma of drying and roasting peppers, carried on the warm autumn breeze. With all that aroma, all that fragrance, I had to find the source. Walid, the driver, who seemed to know everyone and everything in Aleppo, led me to Rafi Poladian, yet another Armenian among the many whose families had been in Aleppo for three or more generations, since fleeing persecution in Turkey. (Many Syrian cooks I talked with characterized spicy red peppers as an Armenian ingredient added to local cuisine, but I questioned that.)

Souq Astar al-Harami, Aleppo

The Poladians lived in Souq Astar al-Harami, in the northern part of town, in a ramshackle and alarmingly dilapidated, three-story wooden compound, on the ground floor of which they made red pepper paste for half the city, it seemed. The peppers they used were long and twisted, grown, Rafi said, on farms up hidden valleys in the hills that surround the city. I wrote about the process in my book The Essential Mediterranean (https://tinyurl.com/4265usbb): “The ripe red peppers are harvested, opened, and the core discarded, also the seeds if you want peppers that aren’t too hot. These halved peppers are laid out on rooftops and dried in the strong autumn sun until they’re somewhat less than bone dry, then brought by the sackful to the neighborhood’s market square. There a self-important and well-fed young man had hooked up a dangerously frayed wire that charged an ancient electric grinding machine that looked like—and might well have been—a 1930s Kitchen-Aid original, once white but now stained rust by generations of red peppers fed into its maw. He proceeded to grind the peppers in the street in front of the shop, filling the air with pink dust.”

Grinding peppers, first step to flayflee halabiye

Up to this point, an observer might find there’s no difference between this and any other ground red chili pepper, like those from Mexico and New Mexico. But the next step made all the difference and it was considerable: The coarsely ground peppers were mixed with a very little olive oil and a judicious quantity of salt and set back out on sunny rooftops to dry again, until the color deepened and darkened. Then the thoroughly dried peppers were brought to the Poladian workshop where they were ground again to make dibsl flayflay or pepper paste.

Aleppo pepper paste

The oil and salt were critical in the production, whether in the paste or in the dried flakes that Rafi also sold by the hundred-grams from burlap sacks. The pleasant fragrance of fermentation, a slightly yeasty, slightly winey aroma that is critical to the quality, comes from the salt, which helps to hold moisture and encourage fermentation.

Here are some of the ways that I saw, tasted, and smelled those peppers in Aleppo:

o   In mhammara, the dense sauce that appears on almost every table as a meze dip or spread, a rich, dark, brick-red blend of walnuts mixed with both fresh and dried peppers (see my recipe here: https://tinyurl.com/37s4x3c4)

o   In a refreshing salad, also served as a meze, crisp, salty green olives chopped and mixed with chopped walnuts or pistachios, pomegranate syrup, and a healthy sprinkle of dried red peppers;

o   Sparking up the beany mash that is deep-fried for falafel, a favorite street food;

o   As a garnish for the great Friday dish called fatteh, served on the Moslem day of rest, toasted flatbread topped with a meat, bean, or vegetable stew and a dollop of yogurt; crushed Aleppo peppers and chopped fresh mint are stirred into warm olive oil or melted butter and poured over the top before it’s sent to the table;

o   As an essential spice in the mixture that tops lahm ajeen (lahmaçun in Turkish), aka Armenian pizza, little discs of dough with a topping of ground meat, peppers and pine nuts;

o   As a dollop of bright pepper paste, added to a humble plate of beans at Abu Abdo, the most popular and oldest bean stew vendor in Aleppo. (“Yes, that’s Abu Abdo,” my Syrian host explained, pointing to the elderly man who was doling out steaming bowls of thick bean soup, called fool, to a crowd of hungry men and boys, “but his father was Abu Abdo, too, and his father before him. Perhaps they weren’t really ever Abu Abdo at all, but that’s what they’ve always been called.”)         

And now it is all gone. Aleppo’s souqs, its beating heart, were obliterated in a horrendous conflagration during the Civil War, and the town itself crumbled under the onslaught of shells, rockets and bombs lobbed by the Syrian Army, the rebel front, Russian warplanes, ISIS, et al. Abu Abdo is gone, the Baron Hotel and its Armenian owners are gone, the ramshackle urban village where the Poladians ground and cured their peppers is gone, and now what was left has crumbled. The earthquakes came as a terminus ad quem, destroying what little remained of the most ancient continuously inhabited city in the Middle East.

I hope very much that Sally Mazloumian and Walid the driver and the infant baptized in the Catholic chapel (now 20 years old, if he survived) all managed to escape the nightmare that has descended on their town and their way of life, and that Rafi Poladian and his family are safe in some less fraught part of the world, possibly still making peppers and pepper paste with what they can find there.

And what about Aleppo pepper now that the city and its economy, not to mention its cherished, centuries-old culinary heritage, have been destroyed? It’s perhaps foolish and self-indulgent to mourn the loss of Aleppo pepper, a trivial thing in the great scheme, but the simple truth is there is no more true Aleppo pepper to be had and there has not been for a long time. Up until now, however, it has been possible to buy various Turkish red peppers, from places like Karamanmarash (Marash biber) Sanliurfa (Urfa or isot biber), and Gaziantep (Antep biber), made in a similar style and tasting almost as rich and complex as Aleppo peppers. But then came the earthquakes, and as of last week, these places too have been destroyed, according to accounts, almost erased from the face of the earth. With more than 30,000 dead throughout the pepper region, with many more injured, unhoused, desperately seeking solace, food, water, medical aid, shelter from the harsh winter winds, I think it’s doubtful there will ever be a resurgence. At least not in our lifetimes.

A nostalgic recipe:

Lahm bil Karaz (Lamb with a Sour Cherry Sauce)

This is an old, much-loved recipe from Aleppo, but food historians find links to Persian (Iranian) cuisine in the combination of meat with a sweet-tart fruit sauce. Not surprisingly, it’s also a favorite in Gaziantep: the two cities share a long history, a distinguished culinary culture, and now, alas, a terrible tragedy. They are also a reminder that modern borders are meaningless.

Lahm bil karaz (aka kebab karaz)

Ground lamb, shaped into meatballs, sometimes wrapped around skewers, often grilled over charcoal but just as frequently sauteed in butter and oil, is finished in a thick, spicy sauce of refreshed dried cherries, sparked with a little cinnamon, pungent Aleppo pepper, and a dose of dibsl roumann, or nar eksisi in Turkish (called pomegranate molasses in the U.S.).

Most recipes call for ground lamb on its own; I combine it with fine bulgur to make a lighter presentation. If you don’t want to include the sour cherry sauce, you could serve the meatballs with a sauce of gently warmed Greek yogurt mixed with crushed garlic and salt.

This will make about 30 meatballs, 6 to 8 servings, depending on what else is served. A rice of bulgur pilaf is good with it.

Note that the dried cherries must be soaked overnight; you can make the meatballs a day ahead and add them to the cherry sauce the next day.

For the cherry sauce:

• 1 pound pitted dried sour cherries

• 1 small yellow onion, minced fine

• 1 or 2 tablespoons unsalted butter

• 1/3 cup dry red wine

• 1 or 2 teaspoons dried Aleppo or Turkish red pepper flakes

• 1 tablespoon sugar

• ½ teaspoon cinnamon

• 1 tablespoon pomegranate molasses

For the meatballs:

• 1 cup fine-grain bulgur wheat

• 2 medium yellow onions, minced fine

• 1 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley

• Extra-virgin olive oil

• 1 tablespoon dried Aleppo or Turkish red pepper

• 1 tablespoon Turkish red pepper paste

• 1 teaspoon ground cumin

• 1 teaspoon ground coriander seeds

• 1 teaspoon allspice

• ½ teaspoon cinnamon

• 1 pound ground lean lamb

• Salt and fresh ground black pepper

Rinse the cherries, then put them in a bowl and add about 2 ½ cups of water. Set aside to soak overnight.

Carefully rinse the bulgur in running water until it comes quite clear, then set in a bowl with cool water to cover to a depth of about an inch. Set aside while you work on the rest of the recipe.

Add the minced onions and parsley to the bowl of a food processor and process, stopping and scraping down frequently, until you have almost a paste. Add a tablespoon of oil and process again, then add all the aromatics and process, again scraping down, to make a thick paste. If necessary, add another tablespoon of oil.

Now drop the ground lamb on top of the paste and process briefly, just to mix. (Don’t process the meat too long as it will make the meatballs dry.) Turn the mixture into a bowl.

Drain the bulgur, pressing it to get rid of the water. Wrap it in a kitchen towel and squeeze over the sink to rid it of as much water as possible. Add the bulgur to the meat in the bowl, along with salt and pepper, and mix and knead with your hands, just as if you were kneading bread dough, wetting your hands if necessary to keep the mixture from sticking. Continue kneading for about 10 minutes, until the mixture is the consistency of biscuit dough, then cover the bowl and refrigerate until chilled—at least an hour but overnight is fine too.

Before cooking, test fry a small meatball to taste for seasoning. Adjust by adding more of anything that seems lacking, salt, pepper, aromatics, etc.

Shape the meat mixture into round, slightly flattened meatballs, about the size of a ping-pong ball—you should easily get 30 out of this quantity. Add about ¼ cup of oil to a sturdy skillet and set it over medium heat. When the oil is hot enough, add the meatballs, one after the other (you’ll have to do this in two batches), but not crowding. Fry the meatballs on both sides until they are crisp and brown. Don’t worry about cooking them all the way through as they will finish in the cherry sauce. As they brown, remove them and set aside. (You can do the recipe ahead of time to this point and refrigerate the fried meatballs until ready to continue.)

Now for the cherry sauce:

Strain the cherries through a sieve into a bowl, pressing to release as much juice as possible. The cherry juice will be quite thick and dark-colored. Measure out about a cup of the strained cherries and set aside. (The remaining cherries can be discarded, unless you have another use for them; they’re a delicious addition to breakfast oatmeal, for instance.)

Set a skillet that’s deep enough to hold all the meatballs and their sauce over medium-low heat. Add the butter and minced onion and cook gently, stirring, until the onion bits are softened and melting. Add the wine, raise the heat slightly, and cook down until the wine has mostly disappeared. Combine the red pepper flakes, sugar, and cinnamon and stir into the onions, along with the pomegranate syrup. Now add the cherry juice and bring to a simmer, stirring to mix everything together well.

Add the meatballs to the sauce along with the cup of reserved cherries. Bring to a simmer once more, cover, and cook on low heat for 15 to 20 minutes, stirring the meatballs occasionally so that they get quite drenched with the cherry syrup, which should thicken around them.

Remove the meatballs and stack them on a serving platter. If the sauce is too thin, raise the heat and boil it down slightly to make a syrup. Pour the syrup over the meatballs, garnish, if you wish, with some lightly toasted pine nuts and a sprinkle of green parsley, and serve immediately.

PS: In the New York Times, architecture writer Michael Kimmelmans, speaking of the effects of the earthquakes, talks about the loss of the “collective threads of a social fabric that, over time, weave together a life, a family, a history, a neighborhood, a community.” So true!